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Mr. Monk and the Candidate
Mr. Monk and the Candidate is the series premiere of Monk. Plot Former San Francisco police detective Adrian Monk is called in by a friend in Santa Clara's police department to investigate the stabbing of a woman named Nicole Vasques in her home. Turning up a number of clues, the obsessive-compulsive detective completes his evidence gathering, but rushes home because he's convinced he left his stove on. During a political rally in San Francisco's financial district, mayoral candidate Warren St. Claire's bodyguard, Jason Ronstadt, is killed by a sniper. The incumbent mayor instructs Captain Leland Stottlemeyer to bring Monk in on the case, and reluctantly, he does. This is also much to the dismay of Stottlemeyer's sidekick lieutenant, who seems to regard Monk as a joke. Monk soon begins turning up clues that the two crimes are linked together, including the fact that the shooter and the man who killed Vasques were both exceptionally tall. Stottlemeyer refuses to pursue the theory, so Monk runs through and investigates the list of possible suspects: * The candidate himself, trying to look like a hero to raise his standing in the polls; * The candidate's wife, Miranda St. Claire, hoping to collect on her husband's estate; * Gavin Lloyd, the campaign manager, who was booted off a Carolina senator's campaign when he was suspected of embezzlement some years before; * Finally, Jesse Goodman, St. Clair's substitute business manager, who turns out to be having an affair with Miranda. Monk questions Jake, one of the campaign volunteers, about Nicole Vasques. Jake says she is not in their records, but promises to keep looking. Later, he calls Monk saying he has evidence for him. He is on his way to see Monk, when at a stoplight a man pretending to be a window washer smashes his head against the wheel, gets in, and drives the car to a ledge where he pushes Jake to his death. At first, the police believe that it is an accident, but Monk knows and proves otherwise. Monk faces a crisis when his nurse/assistant, Sharona Fleming, quits after he reluctantly exposes her latest date, Carl Brewer, as yet another Mr. Wrong. Without her, Monk stays indoors and is unable to participate in the case. In Jake's hat, the police find a printout of a record confirming that Vasques volunteered on the St. Clair campaign, forcing Stottlemeyer to acknowledge that there is some connection. Deputy Mayor Sheldon Burger begs Sharona to help Monk get back to work, promising her a favor if she does. Monk returns to the case. Watching news coverage of the assassination attempt, he notices some odd aspects; later, while he is walking down the street, he is nearly run down by someone in a car (In fact, the only reason he wasn't killed was because his OCD state forced him to go back in the other direction to touch a Stop Sign post that he missed, just narrowly missing the collision) Monk escapes, but in his OCD state, he can't resist touching and counting every parking meter on the way, and thus could not identify the person's license plate number. The F.B.I. traces the rifle used in the shooting to an ex-Green Beret named Ian Sykes, who used to stand 6'5. However they find Sykes in a wheelchair. He claims the rifle was a gift for his father, but as they are leaving Monk remembers the man's shoes were scuffed, meaning he is not handicapped at all. A chase ensues but Monk's fear of heights gets the better of him when he attempts to climb a ladder to head Sykes off, and Sykes escapes. Stottlemeyer is furious, and orders Monk taken off the case, believing that Monk can never be reinstated to the police department as long as his many phobias compromise his fellow officers' safety. Monk is crushed, but realizes something: Sykes did not recognize Monk when he climbed past him down the ladder and when first interrogating him, meaning he was not driving the car that tried to run Monk down. Meanwhile, at night, the same car arrives at the docks to meet with Sykes. Sykes demands to know what is so important, to make Sykes come all the way down there to meet with the driver in private. The answer comes in the form of a gun pointed at Sykes. Sykes furiously says, "you have got to be kidding...!" before the driver shoots him, causing Sykes's body to fall into the water. Forlorn, Monk returns to looking over the evidence of his wife Trudy's murder. Sharona and her son Benjy find him in the parking garage where her car was bombed. When Benjy crashes his skateboard in the garage, and Sharona yells at him, Monk hears the echo of their voices, and solves the case. However, he remembers that he is persona non grata with the police and the city, so Sharona calls in her favor with Burger to get them to listen to Monk. Here's What Happened Monk re-assembles everyone as they were the day of the shooting. He posits that while she was working for the campaign, Nicole Vasques discovered Lloyd was embezzling again. When he was confronted and discovered he could not buy her off, Lloyd unsuccessfully tried to hire Jason Ronstadt, the bodyguard, to kill her. As Monk observes wryly, it must have agitated Lloyd no end to be surrounded by honest people. Lloyd then hired Sykes to kill Vasques and Ronstadt, disguising the first killing as a burglary and the second as an assassination attempt on the candidate. Lloyd laughs it off, saying Monk cannot prove it. Then Monk shows him a photo from the newspaper, showing that, seconds after the shooting, Lloyd was only person pointing in the direction of the shooter. Lloyd says he saw the shooter, and Monk points out that the balloons around the dais were blocking everyone's view. Lloyd says he must have heard the direction the shots came from. To test him, Monk tells him that Sharona is in one of the surrounding skyscrapers with a starter pistol. She fires several shots, but the echo between the surrounding buildings makes it impossible for Lloyd to guess which building she is in. Just as Lloyd breaks down and starts to confess, a real shot is heard, and Lloyd goes down. Sharona sees Sykes in the next wing of the same building, firing his rifle at the dais (Monk dryly comments it is a "contract dispute"). Sykes then flees through the building's boiler room into the sewers, followed by Sharona who is taken hostage. Monk tries to convince the police to look for other exits but they stick to protocol to search the building beginning at the top. Monk then pick-pockets the lieutenant's gun and heads to the basement to look for a secret exit. Overcoming his horror of the sewers, Monk follows Sykes down to the grimy depths and rescues Sharona, grazing Sykes in the head with a non-fatal wound. Monk is celebrated as a hero in the press. His therapist, Dr. Kroger, praises his bravery and says it may be time to approach the department and recommend that Monk be reinstated. However, as Monk and Kroger part company, Monk proves incapable of entering an elevator with a coughing woman, causing Kroger to reevaluate his recommendation. Background Information and Notes * According to USA Network, in the aftermath of this episode, Gavin Lloyd died of his gunshot wound, and Sykes (who survived his wound), was convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. * Randy Disher's name is never stated in the episode, and he is credited as "Lt. Deacon." * Benjy Fleming is played by Kane Richotte in this episode, and in the second and third seasons, but is played in the remainder of the first season by Max Morrow. This was due to the show being shot in different parts of Canada. * Stellina Ruisch makes the first of several appearances as Trudy Monk; mid-way through Season Three, she was replaced by Melora Hardin. * On the Monk Cast Favorites Marathon, this episode was listed as one of Traylor Howard's favorites. * This is one of only three two-part episodes in the series. The others are "Mr. Monk Is On The Run" and "Mr. Monk and the End." * The opening scene of this episode was the first featured in the montage of past scenes which closed "Mr. Monk and the End, Part 2." Likewise, the final lines of the series in that episode paid tribute to this opening, when Monk double-checks his stove before he and Natalie leave his apartment to investigate a case. * There was originally going to be a scene in this episode where Monk goes over to Kathy Street's house after deducing that the note actually meant 5:30 Kathy Street, and interviewed her, only to realize that he ended up repeating himself when he got there. However, this scene was cut, although it was later used in Mr. Monk and the Billionaire Mugger. Sources #List of Monk episodes on Wikipedia #Mr. Monk and the Candidate on USA Network 1.01 Howard, Traylor